Time: A Forgotten Game Aesthetic

Graphic designs of the characters or map is usually what people appreciate the most when talking about game experience. However, time and sound are usually ignored by players. For game audio it is because "we are generally not taught how to describe the quality of the sound," and also that the complexity of sounding is usually not included in our everyday language. Therefore, "one must become familiar with a complex language in order to speak of sounds."

Although talking much about the aesthetics of game audio, I actually want to expand more on the aesthetics of time. Similar to sound, people are usually not familiar with it and that research on this issue is very limited. Back to when coin operated arcade machine was mostly the only available way to play game, coin operated arcade machine was designed for short playing session, which allowed the company to maximize the dropping of coins into slots. However, as the PC became more and more popular, "designer found a very different set of parameters, which allowed for longer playing sessions and encouraged "slow" genres such as adventure games."

The aesthetic of time then can be categorizes into play time and event time. Play time is the real time during the this game, whereas event time is "the time that passes in the game world during this game." For some games, especially action game, event time and play time are the same, but for others they are not the same. Examples include the Sim city, which a few minutes can be decades of years in the game.

Speaking of relationship between play and even time, Nielsen summarizes that the significant difference between them is actually in "pace." The reaction speed in the slow-paced game is not that of a bid deal, whereas many early arcade games require learning to react on time, so that players need to be quick enough to win the game.
Moreover, games like the sport games also required fast reaction and highly developed techniques. Therefore, my question for you guys is: what kind of game,can be slow-paced or fast-paced, requires more gaming skills?